Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Taxing the "Rich"

I did a little research over at the National Taxpayers Union to see who pays what. Interpolating their data, I estimated that those who make $250,000 or more are in the top 3% of adjusted gross income (AGI). That 3% account for 48% of the taxes received by the government.

By contrast, the bottom 50% of taxpayers have an AGI of $32,000 or less and pay only 2% of the total taxes collected.

If you are in the top 5%, your income is above $155,000 and you help pay 59% of total taxes.
If you are in the top 10%, your income is above $112,000 and you help pay 71% of total taxes.

The top 1% earns more than $344,000 and pay 37% of taxes collected.

Obama does not understand that when he sets the bar at $250,000, he is including many small companies, most of them LLCs, who are small businesses. If he adds to their tax burden, he will kill their growth. That means fewer people hired and no spending on expansion. Some estimate that this may include more than 900,000 small businesses.